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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoTOM DODGEPoppy, being reassured by veterinarian Larry Hill, is next on the list to be spayed at the Capital Area Humane Society. The Humane Society spays both feral and pet cats.

Spaying program's efficiency questioned -

In a county with hundreds of thousands of feral cats, the Franklin County commissioners want to
know how much good it does to spend $20,000 on a program that sterilizes a few hundred housecats a
year.

They still are likely to fund the Capital Area Humane Society's AdvoCAT program, but they put a
decision on hold for a week until they get a few questions answered. A briefing is scheduled for
this morning.

"I want them to explain why what seems like a drop in the bucket is effective," Commissioner
John O'Grady said.

AdvoCAT, which helps people who might not be able to afford fixing their pets, is a
quality-of-life program and a chance to educate pet owners, said Denise Youngsteadt-Parrish, who
oversees the program. Any effects on population control are a secondary benefit, she said.

Last year, families used AdvoCAT vouchers to take 545 cats to veterinarians for free
sterilization.

The humane society has another spay-neuter program that focuses more on keeping the number of
feral cats under control. It sterilized 632 feral cats last year, but there is no funding for it
this year.

In that program, independent groups trap cats from feral colonies and take them to the humane
society for sterilization. The cats are then released.

The idea is that sterilizing cats will make them more pleasant - reducing odors, wanderlust and
noise - and that the population of homeless cats eventually will dwindle.

Youngsteadt-Parrish said the area's cat population is being successfully managed through
AdvoCAT, trap-neuter-release and other programs run by the humane society and other nonprofit
groups. Cat admissions at the humane society decreased from 7,631 in 2006 to 4,078 in 2010.

But nationally, there are questions about whether population-control measures can have
large-scale, lasting effects.

The general consensus is that 50 to 90 percent of feral cats in a colony must be sterilized to
control the population, said Margaret Slater, senior director of veterinary epidemiology for the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Experts are pushing for focused efforts on small areas as opposed to fixing a cat here and a cat
there, Slater said.

Experts say any solution requires a mix of feral-cat sterilization, pet sterilization, adoption,
keeping cats indoors and a debate about euthanasia. But all such programs require critical mass to
be effective.

"The problem is that it's hard to get funding for animal control when some cities are cutting
police and fire," Slater said.

The community isn't necessarily convinced that free-roaming cats are a problem, said Linda Lord,
an assistant professor of veterinary preventative medicine at Ohio State University.

"A lot of people, when they see a cat outside, it doesn't bother them," she said. "For some
reason, people feel very differently about free-roaming cats and free-roaming dogs."